The Haunted House, this term has been fuelling our imaginations for hundreds of years. As children, we dare each other to go in, as adults, we laugh at the thought of something being haunted. But what happens if whilst we are laughing, we see someone walking through our front room in a long white dress…

In this article, we can look closely at the ten most haunted houses in America. Some of these haunted houses have a history in murder, others in violence, others with demonic activity. Not nice places to live.

Haunted House 1 : The Hinsdale House

Often called this generations Amityville, Hinsdale house is known as one of the most haunted houses in America. The haunting itself began in the early 1970’s when they Dandy thought they had purchased their small part of the American Dream. The truth, however, was not so dreamy.

After just a few days in their new home, the family began to receive mysterious phone calls, where the phone would ring and they would only hear a heavy breathing. Then the poltergeist activity began, with beds being moved as family members slept in them and furniture being dragged across the room. Sometimes the family would even hear chanting coming from the woods at the other end of there field.

The activity got worse and the family began to live in fear. The apparition of a white woman would be seen floating around the house, as well as bizarre human-animal hybrids, they believed this to be a demonic presence. One one occasion Mr. Dandy saw a group of men and women looking directly at him from the outside, through the window. He ran out to investigate, only to find the same faces staring back at him, only now on the other side of the window…

Mr. Dandy now knew he had moved his family into a dangerously haunted house, so he called in an exorcist. A Father Alphonsus from the St. Bonaventure University. The Exorcism failed miserably and the Dandy family were forced to move.

Today this most haunted of houses have fallen into the hands of a paranormal investigator for maintenance and research purposes. Hinsdale eventually attracted the famous investigator Nick Groff, lead investigator on the show Paranormal Lockdown. It made for one hell of a show.

Over the years many haunted houses have tried to call themselves the next Amityvale. Hinsdale House may be just that and more.

Haunted House 2 : The Lizzie Borden Murder House

In 1982, Lizzie Borden was accused of murdering her father and stepmother with an axe. She was antiquated but it is still widely acknowledged that she committed this crime.

Today the house is a BnB, museum, and kind of shrine to Lizzie Borden. You can actually sleep in the rooms where the murders took place. The current owner, Lee-Anne Williams stated that it is not unusual for guests to flee in the middle of the night.

The scariest moment she can recall herself was during her first and last night spent at the house. She was awoken at 3 am because of a loud creaking sound coming from the hall just outside the room she was sleeping in. As she went to investigate she saw the chandelier swinging madly from side to side.

The Chandelier was old, heavy and solid brass, there was no way a breeze was moving this thing an inch. She told the local paper, terrified ” The chandelier was casting shadows all over the room, but one of these shadows was walking up the stairs. That’s when I knew I had a haunted house.

The Borden house is still a fully functional BnB today. A lot of the furniture is original and whatever isn’t is made to look exactly like the original. Meaning this haunted house looks exactly how it did when it played host to one of the most famous murder mysteries in American history. I wonder if this is a factor in why the build is so active…

Haunted House 3 : House of the Seven Gables

At the end of 7 Gables Road, there’s a creepy old house that was once occupied by a witch. She was chased from the town and lived in exile. So, in turn, she placed a curse on the road, house, and land she lived on.

A family moved into that house 25 years after her death, naive of the history it came with. It did not take long for the father to begin acting strangely. He began talking to himself and quite often with someone else, despite the fact there was never anyone there.

His insanity drove him to kill his entire family and then he proceeded to hang them from each of the gables of their home. He then set the house on fire until it burned to the ground. The house is now a ruin and all who visit have strange experiences.

Some investigators have claimed to have seen the face or head of a little girl whilst others have claimed to have seen the shadow of this little girl running through the trees. Others have been choked by unseen hands. More disturbingly still are the reports of people drowning in the lake on Gables land. More than one…

Today this haunted house lies a ruin, but that has not stopped the witches curse from taking full effect and haunting this land and all who dare visit.

Haunted House 4 : The Riddle House

The Riddle House is one of the most mysterious and haunted houses in the US. After appearing on Ghost Adventures in 2008 it has become something of a ghost busting hotspot. This former funeral parlor has a history in mysterious deaths and is so haunted that when they dismantled it to rebuild elsewhere, the ghosts came along for the ride…

The house itself was originally built in 1905 with cast off parts from the West Beach Hotel. As a result, the house is built up of mainly a cheery yellow, which did not quite suit its nickname, ” The Gravekeepers Cottage”

It was during the houses time in the Woodlawn Cemetary that it saw its first death and history calls this man Buck. He had gotten into a brawl with a man in the cemetery and this man ended up killing him.

From then on workers claimed to see Buck around the house and cemetery, still working away.

In 1920, Karl Riddle took the house over, moving himself and his family. Immediately they all began to experience strange occurrences around the house. Karl even kept a journal of these supernatural occurrences around the house. Then in the late 1920’s horror struck the Riddle family.

One of the cemetery workers, overwhelmed by debt, decided to head up to the attic of the house when the family was out and hang himself. It has been his ghost that has given this haunted house its infamy. There were so many sightings of a Shadowman around the house following this event that many of Riddle’s employee’s quit.

The Riddle Attic – Image via – Finding Folktalkes

Many families since have tried to live in the house but its haunting always proves too much. The house was recently scheduled for demolition before it was purchased and moved brick by brick to Yesteryear Village to remain as a tourist attraction. It’s ghosts decided to follow.

During the reconstruction, many of the workers complained of there tools going missing, only for them to turn in the strangest of places. That along with many other violent supernatural happenings such as windows spontaneously smashing, have given Yesteryear village a rather high staff turn-over.

Today the Riddle house is considered to be the most haunted house in Florida with both residual and intelligent hauntings. Although it’s whatever’s lurking in the attic that is attracting all of the attention.

Haunted House 6 : The Myrtles Plantation

The Myrtles Plantation is the perfect Southern haunted house. Built in 1796, this plantation has survived the civil war, various owners, and countless deaths. Of course, this house is a plantation and was erected during the slave period, so it would have seen its fair share of barbaric human treatment and torture. But the slaves had their own line of defense and revenge. Voodoo. Traces of which still linger today.

The Plantation is known to be one of the most haunted houses in all of America. Sightings have occurred across the acres of land and in each of its 28 rooms.

Guests have reported broken clocks ticking, beds levitating and shaking whilst they are sleeping in them, footsteps that change from slow and light to quick and aggressive. Portraits who’s expressions change, a huge crystal chandelier that would swing without even the slightest breeze, and a mirror is known to make all who look in it, violently ill.

The Plantation is also built upon an ancient Indian burial ground, which is always bad news. The most famous

The most famous ghost within Myrtles Plantation is Charlotte. Charlotte was a slave in the main house who was having an affair with the master. Of course, she fell in love and he swiftly moved onto another slave. So to revenge her pain upon himself, she laced a pie with poison but accidentally killed the master’s two youngest daughters.

Chloe’s fellow slaves quickly caught the wind of what she had done. Fearing guilt by association, they dragged her from her bed, hung her from a tree on the grounds and discarded her body into the Mississipi River.

There is also a little girl seen around the house. Her identity is a mystery but her presence is disturbing. Some think she is the spirit of the little girl who died here despite the help of a local VooDoo practitioner. However, too many times guests and the owner have heard a chanting coming from the woods, and whenever this chanting is heard the little girl is sure to appear.

The Mrtyles plantation is truly a Southern haunted house, its acres of land and formerly slave inhabited fields are truly something to behold. Maybe the lingering effects of black magic take away a little of the beauty tho…

Haunted House 5 : The Whaley House

The Whaley House may not look to haunted from the outside but twice by Times Magazine and America’s Most Haunted it has been called America’s most haunted house.

The land on which the house was built was considered haunted long before Whaley House turned up. The land was used as makeshift gallows in 1852 for a man known as ” Yankee Jim .” According to a few local newspapers, he swung like a pendulum until he was eventually strangled to death.

Thomas Whaley himself was said to have witnessed the execution first hand but was not deterred from building his family home there. I bet he was not deterred by the massively reduced price either. Not long after they moved in they all began to hear ” The footsteps of a heavy man.” Mr. Whaley concluded it was Yankee Jim.

Then Tragedy struck the family when their youngest infant son, Thomas Whaley Jr succumb to scarlet fever. Then some years later the Whaley’s daughter fell in love and married her prince charming, only to find out he was a con man and that he had made off with half her inheritance. Unable to escape her grief, she shot herself in the chest and left a poem. ‘ Mad from life’s history, swift to death’s mystery, glad to be hurled, anywhere, anywhere, out of this world’.

Today the Whaley house attracts Ghost Busters from all around the world and even a few celebrities.

Thomas Whaley himself is most often seen around the house, along with his daughter and dog. Others claim to be have been touch ed or heard a child’s giggle. Most notable is the dark and malicious presence said to roam the house. Could this be Yankee Jim still walking the grounds where he lost his life, or something a lot more sinister?

Haunted House 7 : The Dorothea Puente Murder House

The Dorothea Puente Murder House is a relatively new haunted house to hit the mainstream media. This house is famous for being the former home of Dorothea Puente aka ‘ The Deathouse Landlady.’ To the whole world, Dorothea was a kindly old woman who loved spoiling her guests with huge lavish meals and all the comforts you would expect at Grandma’s house. However, she also enjoyed drugging the food of her guests and then burying them in the backyard… It’s fair to say a few of these spirits have stayed and they are pissed! It would also seem Dorothea also stayed behind as well as something a whole lot more sinister in nature.

Dorothea was a life long criminal, although very few would ever expect it. She was first arrested for check fraud in the late 1940’s and again for running a brothel and prostitution in 1980. She was also later picked up for stealing for the elderly whilst pretending to be a nurses aid.

Crime pays, by the end of the 1980’s Dorothea was living in a 16 room Victorian mansion, the house where she committed these acts and that remains haunted today.

It is thought that she committed her very first murder here when she drugged her business partner. This death was ruled a suicide despite the fact that Dorothea had recently been arrested for drugging an elderly man and looting his home. Coincidentally, she also received an inheritance check from the man she had just murdered for over $6000.

Puente would carry on her murder spree for years. She had convinced social workers that her home was a place all of their elderly or disabled patients would feel more at home. In reality, she was stealing their possessions, drugging them and burying them in the backyard.

Dorothea was eventually caught when a detective was chasing up some leads from the disappearance of a schizophrenic man who was staying at Dorothea’s before he went missing. He and his team noticed some freshly dug earth in the back, so they headed round. One of the guys bent over to pull out what he thought was a tree root. When he eventually snapped the root off, falling back into the mud, he vomited. He was holding a mostly decayed leg bone. That was the first of many.

Dorothea Puente was sentenced to life without parole in California’s state prison, she succumbed to cancer here in 2011 and died.

Today the house serves as a kind of museum to Dorothea and her murderous ways as well as a BnB. A little like the Lizzie Borden House. If has, however, caught the eye of paranormal investigators after a string of strange occurrences.

Many have claimed to have felt a strange sensation around the house of extreme weakness and lethargic. Which is the exact effect of the drug Dorothea used to poison her guests? The current owner who sleeps in a basement room tells she is tortured by the spirit of Dorothea. Once waking up to Dorothea standing at the bottom her bed, looking down on her with a large smile.

Many others have told of a dark and overwhelming atmosphere around the house in the late evenings, whilst others complain of the smell of rotting flesh. Whatever is still in that house, there seems to be more than one, as well as Puente herself still drugging people from the other side. Bad enough… Just ask the owner, Dorothea is not the only evil lurking in the shadows here.

Haunted House 8 : Amityville Horror House

November 13, 1974, was the day the quaint little town of Amityville and the world would remember forever. On that night the police discovered the 6 murdered bodies of the Defoe family. All face down with no signs of struggle or intoxication.

Ronald Defoe, the oldest son was charged with murder and ordered to serve 6 consecutive life sentences. To this day the world is baffled as to how no one in this upscale community heard the unsilenced shot from a 35-marlin rifle ( a very loud hunting rifle ), or just why the Defoe family consented to murder…

The Lutz family moved into the home in December, 8 years after the murder. They purchased the house for an incredibly low $80,000. They thought they had purchased their part of the American dream. Nobody expected them to pack up and leave just 28 days later.

The family were religious and had knowledge of the murders that had taken place here, so they hired a priest to bless the house. After venturing into the master bedroom to complete his blessing. He ran down ashen faced, warned the family to never sleep in that room and left. The Lutz’s were plagued with activity from that moment forward. They soon began to experience drastic mood changes and would argue over the smallest things.

Soon after the youngest daughter, Lucy was spending all of her time in her room playing with her new imaginary friend. She described him as a pig with red eyes who could not only change his form but also grow to be even bigger than the house.

The haunting got worse. For no apparent blood stains began to appear around the house, George ( the father ) would wake up every night in terror at 3:15, this was coincidentally the same time the original murders were committed. Mrs. Lutz was also dragged from her bed whilst sleeping more than once. The Lutz’s now knew they had purchased a very cheap but horribly haunted house.

They tried to call the priest numerous times but the phone would always cut out. Armed with a cross and a bible, George took it up on himself to exercise the house, chanting verses from the bible. In response the house seemed to sing back ” Will you stop !?” This was so disturbing because the responding voices sounded like a choir of young boys. You can imagine how horrific that must have been. Then George and his eldest son both saw a huge pig with red eyes glaring down at them from the top window.

The last night was the worst with bangs so loud they sounded like a marching band, furniture moving itself across the room and the children being terrorized. It took 28 days for the Lutz’s to move out. They never looked back

After much painstaking research, investigators discovered that the land on which the house was built belonged to a man called John Ketchum. Who was arrested for practicing black magic? Turns out also buried directly under the plot for the Amityville house.

They also discovered that the Shinnock Indians used the land to house the sick and mad, eventually leaving them to die here.

If all of this is not a recipe for a haunted house I don’t know what is. Amityvale will always be the most famous haunted house in American history. A lot today claim it a hoax, but aren’t the best paranormal cases called just that?

Haunted House 9 : The Winchester Mystery House

The tale of the Winchester Mystery House begins on September 30th, 1862, When a woman called Sarah Lockwood Pardee married William Wirt Winchester. Son of the man who invented the Winchester repeating rifle or ‘ The Gun that won the West ‘.

The newly wedded Winchesters seemed to be living the dream. Socializing in some of New England’s wealthiest circles. Their first daughter came along in the summer of 1886. Life was perfect. Then there days darkened. Annie their only daughtered died. Shortly followed by Winchester senior and eventually Mr. Winchestor himself. Sarah was left alone and broken.

In her desperation, she contacted a medium who informed her she was cursed. Haunted by the countless Native American and Civil War soldiers that had fallen victim to the Winchester Rifle, and that the only would to stop the curse would be to head west and build a monstrous mansion.

So Sarah did just that, she bought acres of farm land and began building immediately, rotating teams of builders around the clock.

Official blueprints were never printed. Instead, Mrs. Winchester would spend hours each night in her seance room receiving orders from the spirits and in-turn gives these orders to the architects.

Stairs were built that led to nowhere, doors opened onto brick walls, dead end hallways, or fatal three story drops. Eventually, the manor became a sprawling seven story estate. Construction lasted 38 years. The Mansion contains 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 stairways, 47 fireplaces, 1chimneysys, 13 bathrooms, 6 kitchens, 2 basements, and three elevators.

Then, on the morning of September 5th, 1922, Sarah Winchester was found dead in one of her many rooms. The workers heard this news, dropped their tools and left immediately. This means that today parts of the house remain in a half finished state.

Over the years many hidden or sealed of rooms have been found. Most recently an old bricked off room containing some of Sarah’s possessions. It is thought she thought these rooms cursed.

The house today is also very well known for its hauntings, some have even gone as far to call it America’s Most Haunted House. ( I know, another one ).

Throughout the house, apparitions are seen of former handymen pushing their wheelbarrows, Sarah herself, or stranger still, what looks like Native Americans. Visitors have reported being pushed, tapped, bitten, or scratched. Whilst others hear wailing or a singing coming from inside the walls.

We can not doubt a house such as this would be haunted. Some would even claim an infestation of inhuman spirits. Just what exactly was Sarah talking to when she has locked away all those hours alone? Were her intentions as pure as she claims? Whatever the case, the Winchester Mystery House is one hell of a haunted house.

Haunted House 10 : The Villisca Axe Murder House

The Villisca Axe Murder is one of the America’s most haunting murder cases that has remain unvolved for over 100 years. This case saw an entire family killed with an axe whilst they slept in their own beds. The culprit was never caught and today there is a frenzy of paranormal activity in the home. Easily enough to rank it amongst America’s 10 most haunted houses.

Villisca is a small village in the heart of Nebraska. Nothing major ever happened here until the night of June 9th, 1912, when the hacked corpses of Joe and Sarah Monroe were discovered, as well as the bodies of their 4 children and 2 of their friends who were spending the night.

There have been many families living here since the time of the murders, none of which lasted more than a few months. With horrific paranormal activity affecting each one. Today the house is used as a tourist spot. It’s been attracting plenty of those and even more Paranormal Investigators.

The house has even been remade to look exactly how it did, the night of the murders.

Image via – Iowa

The ghosts of all the children are seen and heard around the house, as well as that of what some think is a man. Could just be the children’s father, but this house feels way too hostile for it just to be a family man. Evps are constantly captured of the children giggling and playing amongst themselves. Some come out as screams or threats from a deep male voice.

More recently one ghost buster stabbed himself in the house whilst spending the night there. He survived but claims to have no memory of the incident whatsoever. He was in critical condition for a long time.

The Villisca Axe Murder House is one of the most active in America, with former residents telling tales of violent poltergeist activity, ghostly children playing around the house, and something darker. Let’s just hope these children are not trapped by a dark presence who seems to have taken residence in this haunted house.

The Haunted House, this term has been fuelling our imaginations for hundreds of years. As children, we dare each other to go in, as adults, we laugh at the thought of something being haunted. But what happens if whilst we are laughing, we see someone walking through our front room in a long white dress…

In this article, we can look closely at the ten most haunted houses in America. Some of these haunted houses have a history in murder, others in violence, others with demonic activity. Not nice places to live.

Haunted House 1 : The Hinsdale House

Often called this generations Amityville, Hinsdale house is known as one of the most haunted houses in America. The haunting itself began in the early 1970’s when they Dandy thought they had purchased their small part of the American Dream. The truth, however, was not so dreamy.

After just a few days in their new home, the family began to receive mysterious phone calls, where the phone would ring and they would only hear a heavy breathing. Then the poltergeist activity began, with beds being moved as family members slept in them and furniture being dragged across the room. Sometimes the family would even hear chanting coming from the woods at the other end of there field.

The activity got worse and the family began to live in fear. The apparition of a white woman would be seen floating around the house, as well as bizarre human-animal hybrids, they believed this to be a demonic presence. One one occasion Mr. Dandy saw a group of men and women looking directly at him from the outside, through the window. He ran out to investigate, only to find the same faces staring back at him, only now on the other side of the window…

Mr. Dandy now knew he had moved his family into a dangerously haunted house, so he called in an exorcist. A Father Alphonsus from the St. Bonaventure University. The Exorcism failed miserably and the Dandy family were forced to move.

Today this most haunted of houses have fallen into the hands of a paranormal investigator for maintenance and research purposes. Hinsdale eventually attracted the famous investigator Nick Groff, lead investigator on the show Paranormal Lockdown. It made for one hell of a show.

Over the years many haunted houses have tried to call themselves the next Amityvale. Hinsdale House may be just that and more.

Haunted House 2 : The Lizzie Borden Murder House

In 1982, Lizzie Borden was accused of murdering her father and stepmother with an axe. She was antiquated but it is still widely acknowledged that she committed this crime.

Today the house is a BnB, museum, and kind of shrine to Lizzie Borden. You can actually sleep in the rooms where the murders took place. The current owner, Lee-Anne Williams stated that it is not unusual for guests to flee in the middle of the night.

The scariest moment she can recall herself was during her first and last night spent at the house. She was awoken at 3 am because of a loud creaking sound coming from the hall just outside the room she was sleeping in. As she went to investigate she saw the chandelier swinging madly from side to side.

The Chandelier was old, heavy and solid brass, there was no way a breeze was moving this thing an inch. She told the local paper, terrified ” The chandelier was casting shadows all over the room, but one of these shadows was walking up the stairs. That’s when I knew I had a haunted house.

The Borden house is still a fully functional BnB today. A lot of the furniture is original and whatever isn’t is made to look exactly like the original. Meaning this haunted house looks exactly how it did when it played host to one of the most famous murder mysteries in American history. I wonder if this is a factor in why the build is so active…

Haunted House 3 : House of the Seven Gables

At the end of 7 Gables Road, there’s a creepy old house that was once occupied by a witch. She was chased from the town and lived in exile. So, in turn, she placed a curse on the road, house, and land she lived on.

A family moved into that house 25 years after her death, naive of the history it came with. It did not take long for the father to begin acting strangely. He began talking to himself and quite often with someone else, despite the fact there was never anyone there.

His insanity drove him to kill his entire family and then he proceeded to hang them from each of the gables of their home. He then set the house on fire until it burned to the ground. The house is now a ruin and all who visit have strange experiences.

Some investigators have claimed to have seen the face or head of a little girl whilst others have claimed to have seen the shadow of this little girl running through the trees. Others have been choked by unseen hands. More disturbingly still are the reports of people drowning in the lake on Gables land. More than one…

Today this haunted house lies a ruin, but that has not stopped the witches curse from taking full effect and haunting this land and all who dare visit.

Haunted House 4 : The Riddle House

The Riddle House is one of the most mysterious and haunted houses in the US. After appearing on Ghost Adventures in 2008 it has become something of a ghost busting hotspot. This former funeral parlor has a history in mysterious deaths and is so haunted that when they dismantled it to rebuild elsewhere, the ghosts came along for the ride…

The house itself was originally built in 1905 with cast off parts from the West Beach Hotel. As a result, the house is built up of mainly a cheery yellow, which did not quite suit its nickname, ” The Gravekeepers Cottage”

It was during the houses time in the Woodlawn Cemetary that it saw its first death and history calls this man Buck. He had gotten into a brawl with a man in the cemetery and this man ended up killing him.

From then on workers claimed to see Buck around the house and cemetery, still working away.

In 1920, Karl Riddle took the house over, moving himself and his family. Immediately they all began to experience strange occurrences around the house. Karl even kept a journal of these supernatural occurrences around the house. Then in the late 1920’s horror struck the Riddle family.

One of the cemetery workers, overwhelmed by debt, decided to head up to the attic of the house when the family was out and hang himself. It has been his ghost that has given this haunted house its infamy. There were so many sightings of a Shadowman around the house following this event that many of Riddle’s employee’s quit.

The Riddle Attic – Image via – Finding Folktalkes

Many families since have tried to live in the house but its haunting always proves too much. The house was recently scheduled for demolition before it was purchased and moved brick by brick to Yesteryear Village to remain as a tourist attraction. It’s ghosts decided to follow.

During the reconstruction, many of the workers complained of there tools going missing, only for them to turn in the strangest of places. That along with many other violent supernatural happenings such as windows spontaneously smashing, have given Yesteryear village a rather high staff turn-over.

Today the Riddle house is considered to be the most haunted house in Florida with both residual and intelligent hauntings. Although it’s whatever’s lurking in the attic that is attracting all of the attention.

Haunted House 5 : The Whaley House

The Whaley House may not look to haunted from the outside but twice by Times Magazine and America’s Most Haunted it has been called America’s most haunted house.

The land on which the house was built was considered haunted long before Whaley House turned up. The land was used as makeshift gallows in 1852 for a man known as ” Yankee Jim .” According to a few local newspapers, he swung like a pendulum until he was eventually strangled to death.

Thomas Whaley himself was said to have witnessed the execution first hand but was not deterred from building his family home there. I bet he was not deterred by the massively reduced price either. Not long after they moved in they all began to hear ” The footsteps of a heavy man.” Mr. Whaley concluded it was Yankee Jim.

Then Tragedy struck the family when their youngest infant son, Thomas Whaley Jr succumb to scarlet fever. Then some years later the Whaley’s daughter fell in love and married her prince charming, only to find out he was a con man and that he had made off with half her inheritance. Unable to escape her grief, she shot herself in the chest and left a poem. ‘ Mad from life’s history, swift to death’s mystery, glad to be hurled, anywhere, anywhere, out of this world’.

Today the Whaley house attracts Ghost Busters from all around the world and even a few celebrities.

Thomas Whaley himself is most often seen around the house, along with his daughter and dog. Others claim to be have been touch ed or heard a child’s giggle. Most notable is the dark and malicious presence said to roam the house. Could this be Yankee Jim still walking the grounds where he lost his life, or something a lot more sinister?

Haunted House 6 : The Myrtles Plantation

The Myrtles Plantation is the perfect Southern haunted house. Built in 1796, this plantation has survived the civil war, various owners, and countless deaths. Of course, this house is a plantation and was erected during the slave period, so it would have seen its fair share of barbaric human treatment and torture. But the slaves had their own line of defense and revenge. Voodoo. Traces of which still linger today.

The Plantation is known to be one of the most haunted houses in all of America. Sightings have occurred across the acres of land and in each of its 28 rooms.

Guests have reported broken clocks ticking, beds levitating and shaking whilst they are sleeping in them, footsteps that change from slow and light to quick and aggressive. Portraits who’s expressions change, a huge crystal chandelier that would swing without even the slightest breeze, and a mirror is known to make all who look in it, violently ill.

The Plantation is also built upon an ancient Indian burial ground, which is always bad news. The most famous

The most famous ghost within Myrtles Plantation is Charlotte. Charlotte was a slave in the main house who was having an affair with the master. Of course, she fell in love and he swiftly moved onto another slave. So to revenge her pain upon himself, she laced a pie with poison but accidentally killed the master’s two youngest daughters.

Chloe’s fellow slaves quickly caught the wind of what she had done. Fearing guilt by association, they dragged her from her bed, hung her from a tree on the grounds and discarded her body into the Mississipi River.

There is also a little girl seen around the house. Her identity is a mystery but her presence is disturbing. Some think she is the spirit of the little girl who died here despite the help of a local VooDoo practitioner. However, too many times guests and the owner have heard a chanting coming from the woods, and whenever this chanting is heard the little girl is sure to appear.

The Mrtyles plantation is truly a Southern haunted house, its acres of land and formerly slave inhabited fields are truly something to behold. Maybe the lingering effects of black magic take away a little of the beauty tho…

Haunted House 7 : The Dorothea Puente Murder House

The Dorothea Puente Murder House is a relatively new haunted house to hit the mainstream media. This house is famous for being the former home of Dorothea Puente aka ‘ The Deathouse Landlady.’ To the whole world, Dorothea was a kindly old woman who loved spoiling her guests with huge lavish meals and all the comforts you would expect at Grandma’s house. However, she also enjoyed drugging the food of her guests and then burying them in the backyard… It’s fair to say a few of these spirits have stayed and they are pissed! It would also seem Dorothea also stayed behind as well as something a whole lot more sinister in nature.

Dorothea was a life long criminal, although very few would ever expect it. She was first arrested for check fraud in the late 1940’s and again for running a brothel and prostitution in 1980. She was also later picked up for stealing for the elderly whilst pretending to be a nurses aid.

Crime pays, by the end of the 1980’s Dorothea was living in a 16 room Victorian mansion, the house where she committed these acts and that remains haunted today.

It is thought that she committed her very first murder here when she drugged her business partner. This death was ruled a suicide despite the fact that Dorothea had recently been arrested for drugging an elderly man and looting his home. Coincidentally, she also received an inheritance check from the man she had just murdered for over $6000.

Puente would carry on her murder spree for years. She had convinced social workers that her home was a place all of their elderly or disabled patients would feel more at home. In reality, she was stealing their possessions, drugging them and burying them in the backyard.

Dorothea was eventually caught when a detective was chasing up some leads from the disappearance of a schizophrenic man who was staying at Dorothea’s before he went missing. He and his team noticed some freshly dug earth in the back, so they headed round. One of the guys bent over to pull out what he thought was a tree root. When he eventually snapped the root off, falling back into the mud, he vomited. He was holding a mostly decayed leg bone. That was the first of many.

Dorothea Puente was sentenced to life without parole in California’s state prison, she succumbed to cancer here in 2011 and died.

Today the house serves as a kind of museum to Dorothea and her murderous ways as well as a BnB. A little like the Lizzie Borden House. If has, however, caught the eye of paranormal investigators after a string of strange occurrences.

Many have claimed to have felt a strange sensation around the house of extreme weakness and lethargic. Which is the exact effect of the drug Dorothea used to poison her guests? The current owner who sleeps in a basement room tells she is tortured by the spirit of Dorothea. Once waking up to Dorothea standing at the bottom her bed, looking down on her with a large smile.

Many others have told of a dark and overwhelming atmosphere around the house in the late evenings, whilst others complain of the smell of rotting flesh. Whatever is still in that house, there seems to be more than one, as well as Puente herself still drugging people from the other side. Bad enough… Just ask the owner, Dorothea is not the only evil lurking in the shadows here.

Haunted House 8 : Amityville Horror House

November 13, 1974, was the day the quaint little town of Amityville and the world would remember forever. On that night the police discovered the 6 murdered bodies of the Defoe family. All face down with no signs of struggle or intoxication.

Ronald Defoe, the oldest son was charged with murder and ordered to serve 6 consecutive life sentences. To this day the world is baffled as to how no one in this upscale community heard the unsilenced shot from a 35-marlin rifle ( a very loud hunting rifle ), or just why the Defoe family consented to murder…

The Lutz family moved into the home in December, 8 years after the murder. They purchased the house for an incredibly low $80,000. They thought they had purchased their part of the American dream. Nobody expected them to pack up and leave just 28 days later.

The family were religious and had knowledge of the murders that had taken place here, so they hired a priest to bless the house. After venturing into the master bedroom to complete his blessing. He ran down ashen faced, warned the family to never sleep in that room and left. The Lutz’s were plagued with activity from that moment forward. They soon began to experience drastic mood changes and would argue over the smallest things.

Soon after the youngest daughter, Lucy was spending all of her time in her room playing with her new imaginary friend. She described him as a pig with red eyes who could not only change his form but also grow to be even bigger than the house.

The haunting got worse. For no apparent blood stains began to appear around the house, George ( the father ) would wake up every night in terror at 3:15, this was coincidentally the same time the original murders were committed. Mrs. Lutz was also dragged from her bed whilst sleeping more than once. The Lutz’s now knew they had purchased a very cheap but horribly haunted house.

They tried to call the priest numerous times but the phone would always cut out. Armed with a cross and a bible, George took it up on himself to exercise the house, chanting verses from the bible. In response the house seemed to sing back ” Will you stop !?” This was so disturbing because the responding voices sounded like a choir of young boys. You can imagine how horrific that must have been. Then George and his eldest son both saw a huge pig with red eyes glaring down at them from the top window.

The last night was the worst with bangs so loud they sounded like a marching band, furniture moving itself across the room and the children being terrorized. It took 28 days for the Lutz’s to move out. They never looked back

After much painstaking research, investigators discovered that the land on which the house was built belonged to a man called John Ketchum. Who was arrested for practicing black magic? Turns out also buried directly under the plot for the Amityville house.

They also discovered that the Shinnock Indians used the land to house the sick and mad, eventually leaving them to die here.

If all of this is not a recipe for a haunted house I don’t know what is. Amityvale will always be the most famous haunted house in American history. A lot today claim it a hoax, but aren’t the best paranormal cases called just that?

Haunted House 9 : The Winchester Mystery House

The tale of the Winchester Mystery House begins on September 30th, 1862, When a woman called Sarah Lockwood Pardee married William Wirt Winchester. Son of the man who invented the Winchester repeating rifle or ‘ The Gun that won the West ‘.

The newly wedded Winchesters seemed to be living the dream. Socializing in some of New England’s wealthiest circles. Their first daughter came along in the summer of 1886. Life was perfect. Then there days darkened. Annie their only daughtered died. Shortly followed by Winchester senior and eventually Mr. Winchestor himself. Sarah was left alone and broken.

In her desperation, she contacted a medium who informed her she was cursed. Haunted by the countless Native American and Civil War soldiers that had fallen victim to the Winchester Rifle, and that the only would to stop the curse would be to head west and build a monstrous mansion.

So Sarah did just that, she bought acres of farm land and began building immediately, rotating teams of builders around the clock.

Official blueprints were never printed. Instead, Mrs. Winchester would spend hours each night in her seance room receiving orders from the spirits and in-turn gives these orders to the architects.

Stairs were built that led to nowhere, doors opened onto brick walls, dead end hallways, or fatal three story drops. Eventually, the manor became a sprawling seven story estate. Construction lasted 38 years. The Mansion contains 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 stairways, 47 fireplaces, 1chimneysys, 13 bathrooms, 6 kitchens, 2 basements, and three elevators.

Then, on the morning of September 5th, 1922, Sarah Winchester was found dead in one of her many rooms. The workers heard this news, dropped their tools and left immediately. This means that today parts of the house remain in a half finished state.

Over the years many hidden or sealed of rooms have been found. Most recently an old bricked off room containing some of Sarah’s possessions. It is thought she thought these rooms cursed.

The house today is also very well known for its hauntings, some have even gone as far to call it America’s Most Haunted House. ( I know, another one ).

Throughout the house, apparitions are seen of former handymen pushing their wheelbarrows, Sarah herself, or stranger still, what looks like Native Americans. Visitors have reported being pushed, tapped, bitten, or scratched. Whilst others hear wailing or a singing coming from inside the walls.

We can not doubt a house such as this would be haunted. Some would even claim an infestation of inhuman spirits. Just what exactly was Sarah talking to when she has locked away all those hours alone? Were her intentions as pure as she claims? Whatever the case, the Winchester Mystery House is one hell of a haunted house.

Haunted House 10 : The Villisca Axe Murder House

The Villisca Axe Murder is one of the America’s most haunting murder cases that has remain unvolved for over 100 years. This case saw an entire family killed with an axe whilst they slept in their own beds. The culprit was never caught and today there is a frenzy of paranormal activity in the home. Easily enough to rank it amongst America’s 10 most haunted houses.

Villisca is a small village in the heart of Nebraska. Nothing major ever happened here until the night of June 9th, 1912, when the hacked corpses of Joe and Sarah Monroe were discovered, as well as the bodies of their 4 children and 2 of their friends who were spending the night.

There have been many families living here since the time of the murders, none of which lasted more than a few months. With horrific paranormal activity affecting each one. Today the house is used as a tourist spot. It’s been attracting plenty of those and even more Paranormal Investigators.

The house has even been remade to look exactly how it did, the night of the murders.

Image via – Iowa

The ghosts of all the children are seen and heard around the house, as well as that of what some think is a man. Could just be the children’s father, but this house feels way too hostile for it just to be a family man. Evps are constantly captured of the children giggling and playing amongst themselves. Some come out as screams or threats from a deep male voice.

More recently one ghost buster stabbed himself in the house whilst spending the night there. He survived but claims to have no memory of the incident whatsoever. He was in critical condition for a long time.

The Villisca Axe Murder House is one of the most active in America, with former residents telling tales of violent poltergeist activity, ghostly children playing around the house, and something darker. Let’s just hope these children are not trapped by a dark presence who seems to have taken residence in this haunted house.